IndyCar, Texas Motor Speedway reach new four-year agreement - MotorSportsTalk

IndyCar officials on Thursday morning announced a new four-year agreement with Texas Motor Speedway to continue racing at the 1.5-mile superspeedway through 2022.

“IndyCar is pleased to continue its long relationship with Texas Motor Speedway, a partnership that stretches to 1997,” Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Company, which owns IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, said in a statement. “This oval track annually produces some of the most exciting racing of the season, contributes to the diversity of the schedule and helps us continue the oval heritage of Indy car racing.

“It’s good to know that Texas will remain a mainstay of the Verizon IndyCar Series for years to come.”

The first race of the new agreement – the DXC Technology 600 – will be a Saturday night event on June 8, 2019.

“Texas Motor Speedway is the second home of Indy car racing, and we are thrilled to extend our partnership with the Verizon IndyCar Series and with DXC Technology,” Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage said in a statement. “We are pleased to have negotiated a sanction agreement that allows Texas Motor Speedway to move forward with IndyCar.

“Our company has invested significant dollars into the sport and a tremendous amount of effort growing the sport through the years.”

TMS has played host to 30 Indy car events since 1997, including two races per year from 1998 to 2004 and a same-day doubleheader in 2011.

Only the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (102 races), the street course in Long Beach, California (35 races) and the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (34 races) have held more IndyCar races than TMS.

“So many great moments in this sport have occurred at Texas Motor Speedway,” Gossage said. “This is and always will be ‘America’s original nighttime Indy car race.’ Photo finishes and victory lane drama have been the standard over the years.

“No other track has seen as many Verizon IndyCar Series races over the last two-plus decades. Texas Motor Speedway has been good for Indy car racing and Indy car racing has been good for Texas Motor Speedway.”

Scott Dixon won the most recent race there this past June.

IndyCar is expected to announce the full 2019 schedule in September.

Follow @JerryBonkowski

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports